


Hell's Bells

by Safiyabat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Gore, Demonic Possession, F/F, Hellhounds, Mark of Cain, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2271879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/pseuds/Safiyabat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg thought nothing could have surprised her more than the fact that Sam Winchester figured out that she was still sort-of alive after Crowley stabbed her and came to rescue her.  That was before he told her that Abaddon had resurfaced and was making a bid to take Hell from her arch-nemesis.  What's a demon to do but go join her schoolgirl crush in taking down a rival?  AU after "Mother's Little Helper."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Rolling Thunder, Pouring Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta agelade for all the hard work and patience!
> 
> Supernatural and the characters from the show are not my property. I make no money from this or any other work of fan fiction.

When Crowley’s blade pierced her side Meg had been pretty sure she that was it. There had been pain, and then there had been cold. She hadn’t felt cold like that since Lucifer’s hands had caressed her face back in the days of miracle and wonder, when her god had walked the earth. Of course he and his apocalypse had turned out to be something of a bust and now so had her life. She had just enough energy left to simulate the flashing lights of extinction. It was enough to fool Crowley, who stormed away with a kick and left her for dead. Once the scene was empty she pulled herself slowly and painfully over to one of the empty drums littering the lot where they’d fought and concealed herself inside. 

Part of her wanted to hope that it wasn’t all finished for her. She had survived, like she always did. Hope, though, wasn’t exactly part of the typical demonic emotional repertoire. She probably wouldn’t survive for long. The angel blade he’d used hadn’t managed to hit her heart but it had done a lot of damage; a human wouldn’t have been able to survive it. Castiel – something was seriously wrong with him, she’d been able to tell even in her weakened state, and the chance that he’d be even remotely interested in helping her the way he was now was remote at best pizza man or no. There would be no help from Dean. Help was never to be expected from Dean no matter how good she’d been to them. She was a demon, and Azazel’s daughter to boot, and that was as much as he needed to know to know that she needed killing. And Sam – well, one way or another he wasn’t long for this world. Either he’d finish the Trials, in which case he’d die because who was seriously stupid enough to think he’d survive those? Or he’d die from the disease that she could see with her own eyes was devouring his body, consuming him from the inside out. Either way, she couldn’t expect much from him even if he could shake Dean for like two seconds. 

Still, she’d gotten away from Crowley. She’d kept the angel tablet out of his grubby little hands. She’d done good. She’d won. 

The thought consoled her as she descended into dormancy. Demons didn’t sleep, of course. They could be knocked out, rarely, and of course they could be killed. If their meatsuit was damaged enough and they didn’t smoke out they could also go dormant, and the funny thing about an angel’s blade was that it damaged the demon inside not just the packaging. And so Meg hid herself in the drum and let the comforting darkness close in on her until nothing bothered her anymore. She didn’t expect to wake up. 

She certainly didn’t expect to wake up to the sensation of something hot and wet touching her lips. The stink of sulfur assailed her nose; demon blood, then. She drank greedily. It wasn’t until the end that she noticed the subtle hint of human blood, and not just any human either. There had been just enough blood to fill the wine glass that had been pressed to her lips and most of it seemed to be pretty basic stuff – Stunt Demon Number Five Hundred Forty Two kind of stuff. She picked up a few tiny undertones of something different, though. Human tinged with something far older, something infinitely familiar and at the same time mingled with just a bit of… angelic grace? None of that stopped her from draining every drop from the goblet before she opened her eyes. She could feel her stolen skin knitting back together from where it had become corrupted and putrid. 

A pair of strong, massive hands helped her into a sitting position. She didn’t need to open her eyes to recognize those hands. After all, they’d been hers once, briefly. She opened her eyes anyway. Sam Winchester looked different. He looked a hell of a lot healthier for one thing, at least in body. His face had set into grim lines, though, that said nothing good about his mental state. Not, she reflected, that his mental state could ever have been called good. His hair might have been a little different too. “Look at you, getting all Jackie O on me,” she observed, sinking her head back against the headboard. A headboard was good. It strongly suggested that she was in a hotel of some kind. Sleazy motel in all likelihood, the Winchesters’ terra mater. “As soon as I’m back I’m buying you a twinset and pearls.” 

He huffed a little, but his eyes brightened when he shook his head. “It’s good to know that some people never change, even with a year in limbo. How you feeling, Meg?” He sat back when she proved she could sit up by herself. 

“Like I’ve spent a year holed up in an oil drum.” Her eyes flicked around to the rest of the room. It actually wasn’t the bottom of the barrel. It wasn’t the top of the pops either – kind of middle of the road, clean and comfortable but not fancy. It wasn’t bad. “Has it really been a year?” She let her eyes rest on the other member of the party. The meatsuit she wore was tiny, Caucasian but darkly tanned with dark hair and a tight black dress. Her true face was a lot more orange, with scales. “Nicole?” she asked, blinking.

“It’s been a while, huh, Meg?” the crossroads demon smiled. “Good to see you again.”

“You rescued me?” she quizzed, confused. The crossroads demons usually didn’t get involved with politics, whatever their personal loyalties.

“Not exactly. I mean yeah, it’s my blood you drank. And I’m not exactly a fan of Crowley’s but you knew that. But I had no idea that you were – that you could be saved until your little brother here came along and summoned me and, uh, offered me some subtle encouragement.” She glowered at Sam, who gave her what Dean would probably call a bitchface if he were here.

“Wait a minute – you knew I was alive?” Meg asked, shaking her head. “And you waited all this time?” 

“I think that’s a more appropriate conversation to have in private.” He rose and gave a thin, tight smile to Nicole. “Thanks for the donation, Nicole. Are you going to be okay getting back to wherever it is that you need to go?”

“Sure, no big.” She gave an elaborate, bored shrug. “Crossroads demons get a lot of leeway, you know. And I am kind of a celebrity. I need to go and do celebrity things sometimes. Give a call if youse need anything.” She glared at him. “On the phone this time.” 

Both Sam and Meg snorted. “I’ll do that. You do the same,” the former assured her, escorting her to the door. “Try to stay out of the Midwest, would you? Dean’s, uh – well, he’s not overly interested in the Jersey Shore or in California these days, let me put it to you that way.” 

She winked at him. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Thanks.” And Nicole was gone.

Meg put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to the side. “So. A whole year. Again. You want to tell me what the Hell?” 

He grabbed a bottle of bourbon from his ratty duffel bag and passed it to her before sitting down. “Yeah. Uh, to be honest, at first I had no idea that you might still be alive. Or whatever,” he corrected himself, looking at her with those intense eyes of his. She remembered being inside his head, the constant weight of guilt. 

She looked away. “Skip it with the mushy stuff, Winchester,” she muttered. 

“Right. So, I was all caught up in that whole thing –“ 

“Yeah, congrats on the whole not dying thing,” she pointed out. “I was pretty sure you were toast.”

“I, uh, I was toast.”

“What, again?” She shook her head. The guy died more often than some ancient grain deities. 

“Pretty much.”

“You want to elaborate on that?” she prodded when his lips folded tightly.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He wanted me to do the Trials. Then he didn’t.”

She waited for him to continue. What she wouldn’t give for a rack and a couple of decades. Of course, the guy had been in the Cage for how long without breaking. She probably still wouldn’t get much out of him with torture. “So… I mean, work with me here, Sam. I’ve bled for you, I freaking died for you Winchesters. You can give me a few gory details.” 

“It’s not about keeping secrets, Meg,” he sighed, and for a moment he looked every one of the five thousand something years on his soul. “It just doesn’t… matter. It doesn’t.”

It obviously mattered to someone, because he was here without his big brother looming over him. And who knew where that would lead, because Dean might well take exception to Sam consorting with demons again. This directly affected Meg’s well-being. She took a moment to mentally curse John Winchester’s spirit, wherever it had wound up. Azazel might have been a crap father but if he’d have had the raising of Sam at least he wouldn’t be sitting here saying that dying again didn’t matter. And a turd like Crowley would never have ascended the throne, so there was that. “I’ll decide what matters to me, Sam.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Fine.” In clipped tones he ground out a tale that sounded too bizarre for language. Evidently Dean had not in fact figured out that Sam would die in completing the Trials, but he was dying anyway, and then somehow an angel got involved and Dean managed to give consent for Sam? Or maybe tricked him? Whatever. Winchester drama, extra angel sauce, moving on. 

“How did you – “ she wondered. Then she stopped. He’d just done it. He’d taken control of the father of her species and locked him down in that mammoth body of his. He could do whatever he wanted with some pissant renegade angel. “Anyway. So you didn’t look for me this time because you were possessed.” 

“I didn’t think to look because my mind was being erased on a minute-by-minute basis. Anyway, once that thing was gone I started having visions again. Of you. So I did a little research, cast a spell here or there, asked Nicole politely for her help and here we are.” 

“How did you know that the blood would work?” she asked, taking a deep gulp of the bottle he’d offered. He hadn’t skimped on the booze, that was for damn sure. Booze was something humans got right. She couldn’t really get drunk, but she liked the taste and she loved the burn of hard liquor. It reminded her of the better parts of home. 

“Found it in a book,” he admitted. “We’ve been squatting in this place, this abandoned secret society bunker. I’d love to bring you there sometime but Dean…” A shadow passed over his face at the mention of his brother; she’d always thought that was kind of clichéd but with demons anything could happen. Or with Winchesters, she supposed. 

“Trouble in Winchester Paradise?” she clucked at him.

“He’s working with Crowley, Meg.” He looked down at his hands, then away. “He’s working with Crowley. On purpose.” He took a deep breath and launched into another explanation about Dean having met the First Knight – even Meg hadn’t actually met him, although she remembered having seen him from afar sometime back when the carpenter from Judea was doing his thing. Somehow Cain had passed his Mark to Dean, and if there had ever been anyone better suited to a lifetime of mayhem and murder than Dean Winchester Meg couldn’t think of it, and now poor little Dean was addicted to using the First Blade or to killing things or some crap like that. Fucking Winchesters. “He really isn’t overly interested in where I go or what I do,” Sam told her, looking up. “My biggest concern is Crowley. I don’t want to risk him finding out about you. I’m pretty sure I managed to keep him off my tail so far and I’ve kept this room warded against him –“

“Really, Sammy? Been going to night school?”

“…Shut up,” he glowered fondly. “I told you, abandoned secret society lair. And I actually learned a lot from Ruby.” He sighed and glanced toward the window. “Anyway. Nicole’s got this place covered for a week. I wouldn’t recommend staying any longer; someone’s bound to notice something.” 

She snorted. “I do know how to do this, Sam. I’m a good two thousand years old, Earth-time.” 

He tilted his head to the side. “Are you really? Well you don’t look a day over fifteen hundred.” 

He stayed with her, which was a weird thing in and of itself. Meg spent the bulk of her time drifting in and out of consciousness for a couple of days because coming back from a state of near death isn’t to be taken lightly but she roused herself long enough to make note of things. She wasn’t a prisoner. There were no devil’s traps in the room. Sam took a few phone calls but they were rare. He mostly stayed on the computer or poked at huge, dusty books. 

After a couple of days Meg felt well enough that she didn’t need sleep and she could focus on things again. “So what’s got Crowley so fired up that he felt compelled to go after the First Blade?” she wanted to know, turning off the television. Daytime TV made her want to wallow in the blood of someone or something, which had to mean that she was getting better somehow. “That thing is… I mean, the one who holds it is more animal than demon.”

“Or human,” he added. 

“Sam, your brother won’t be human anymore if he even still is,” she pointed out. She let out a little chuckle. “Wouldn’t it be funny if he was all fired up about you being part demon but he wound up being the one to go full demon?” 

“Not really.”

“Your demonic sense of humor needs some real refining, Sam.” She shook her head. She had managed to recover enough control over her abilities that she was able to repair a lot of the damage that had been inflicted on her host before her fight with Crowley. “Anyway, why would Crowley want a loose canon like that on staff? It’s a terrible idea. He may think he can control Dean but it’s going to come back to bite him in the ass.” That mental image would probably never leave her brain. “Dean’s not going to be able to pick and choose who he kills, Sam. You need to stay the hell away from him.”

He shrugged. “Don’t care, remember? Anyway, the First Blade is the only weapon that can kill Abaddon, apparently –“

Meg grabbed his arm. “Wait, Abaddon? Sam, that’s impossible. She disappeared in –“

“Nineteen fifty-eight,” he supplied. “She got caught in a time travel spell. Came out of a closet in 2013… right behind our grandfather. Whom she eventually killed,” he pointed out with a grimace and a scratch of the head. 

“Time travel spell,” Meg repeated. 

“Yeah. Our lives didn’t get less weird when you left them, Meg.”

“Do you have any idea about the ruckus her disappearance caused in Hell?” she demanded. “She was the last Knight of Hell, Sam. She was the best. She was the biggest, the baddest, the scariest, the most beautiful of all of the demons. You should have seen her at Masada. You should have seen her at the sack of Rome, Sam. “ She closed her eyes and sighed. “And you’re saying she’s here.” 

The hunter was staring at her. The expression on his face was probably evenly split between amusement and horror. “Uh, yeah. She’s, uh, she’s something. Possessing a Man of Letters by the name of Josie Sands.”

“I remember she was supposed to infiltrate those hidebound snobs,” Meg mused. “I guess it didn’t go as well as planned.” 

“Given that she initially intended to possess my grandfather I’d say so.” He shrugged. “Small world. Anyway, yeah. She found out that Crowley crowned himself king and has been trying to rectify the situation.”

Meg threw her arms around the mountain of a Winchester. “This is the best news I’ve had since that time we busted into Crowley’s lair to try to steal your soul back.” 

He did his best impression of a poleaxed moose. “Uh, how is Abaddon ever good news for anyone?”

“Other than her being more than enough to take out Crowley by herself?” she challenged. “We’re gonna win this time, Sam. We’re finally gonna win!” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Define ‘we’ again,” he challenged. “Not actually a demon, remember?” 

She bumped his shoulder. “Not entirely. Not yet.” 

“I can’t decide if I should be insulted or flattered,” he retorted. “Anyway, she’s stealing souls from the living. No one has ever done that before.” 

Meg felt her host’s face screw up. “That… that doesn’t sound like her,” she objected. “I mean yeah – demon. We’re all a little iffy on the whole moral spectrum thing, you know?” Privately she didn’t think Sam was as squeaky-clean as he pretended he was in that department but whatever let him sleep at night. “What makes you think that’s what she’s doing?” 

“I tripped across an operation.” He shifted, buried his face in his hands and tried to wipe the fatigue from his face. “Town full of soulless people. Who’d have thought I’d have been a stellar example of a soulless guy, you know? These folks were… anyway. I managed to get some answers out of the demon possessing someone named Sister Agnes. And Abaddon had been at the same convent when she possessed Josie Sands.”

Meg bit her lip. “Okay. It sounds… bad. But I can’t bring myself… there has to be some other explanation. She wasn’t like that when I knew her back in the day. I want to talk to her.” 

He shrugged. “Your funeral.”

“Let’s let the maid in. I need some blood.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Meg. No. Here, wait.” He went into the bathroom and grabbed one of the Styrofoam cups and nicked a vein, providing enough blood to make a call. “That should about do it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Can you go for like ten minutes without heroing at someone? They don’t even know you’re doing it.”

“It’s hardly heroing, Meg. It’s not being a dick. Make your call before it coagulates. I want to be long gone before Abaddon shows up.” He spoke while he bandaged his arm up, not wasting time.

She did make her call. It was hard to get a read on the demon on the other end of these types of communications. She knew that it was Abaddon – you could say what you wanted about modern communications but there was no way to hack a blood call, no way to feign someone else’s identity. She simply told the Knight that she was Azazel’s daughter and she wanted to come on board with the fight against Crowley. The instruction came back to meet her at a beer bar in a seedy part of Boston in another week’s time. That suited Sam’s needs - Dean was starting to get suspicious about the whole disappearing for a week and apparently for all that he was less interested in where Sam went and what he did “less interested” didn’t mean “uninterested” or “trusting.” And he was itching to pull that leash a little tighter. Frigging Winchesters and their drama. 

They made sure that they had each other’s phone numbers, Sam insisting that he’d help her out no matter what. “Like I told Nicole,” he reminded her before leaving, “he tends to stick to the middle part of the country these days. The coasts aren’t so interesting to him.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “You know I’ll probably pass that little nugget on.”

He shrugged. “The First Blade can kill a Knight. Doesn’t mean it will. For now Dean’s still just a man, you know? He kicks a lot of ass, but so does she.”

“Damn straight.”

He chuckled. “I hope it works out for you and your high school crush, Meg. Although I have to say you sure can pick ‘em. First Cas and now Abaddon.” 

She slugged his shoulder lightly. “Shut up.”

After he left she turned her attention to the things she needed to get. Nicole was a good ally, actually. She had a lot of leeway and plenty of perfectly valid excuses to speak to a wide variety of people. As it turned out there were still plenty of demons who were on the fence – not thrilled about Crowley’s little “alterations” to the Pit but reluctant to have a Knight on the throne, too. That made sense. A Knight could fight, and that was certainly a wonderful thing, but a Knight was destruction and chaos for its own sake. A Knight would be unlikely to have much patience for rule. Abaddon, out of all of them, was the most likely to be able to hold on the longest. She had always had a good head for long-term planning and strategy but even Azazel would never have considered setting one up to rule. He’d rather corrupt a human child, make a new monster out of an innocent and have order in the ranks, than have a wild-blooded creature like Abaddon with a crown on her head. And how much of that had been misogyny? Lilith had been older than Azazel, and nastier to a certain extent. Why had she not been his designated heir? Why had she needed to fight her way to the throne? Why had Meg herself never been considered for rule? She was Azazel’s daughter and far more legitimately than his designated heir was his son. 

No more of that. Lucifer had favored her over all of the other demons. Alone among her race he had deigned to touch her, to caress her face and keep her close to him. She had to accept his defeat but she didn’t have to accept her own. She didn’t necessarily want to rule, she didn’t care about that. Not anymore. She wanted to not serve. She wanted to not bow down to that jumped up salesman. She wanted the glory days of Hell back and if that meant consorting with the occasional angel or Winchester then so be it. 

Nicole was able to put her in touch with some of the more traditional demons, like Asmodeus and Ramuel and Tammuz. They had all known her father, they had all served Lucifer faithfully and they had all survived Crowley’s purge by simply lying low and awaiting an opportunity. Well, she was that opportunity. They had to admit that they’d initially felt a certain degree of despondence when she’d disappeared but now that they had proof of her continued life they were willing to consider her proposals. Of course they weren’t willing to simply take her apparent resurrection for proof of possible success – Crowley evidently had Cain and Dean Winchester on his side, and of course where Dean went Sam was certain to follow like the lost little puppy he truly was. 

Meg kept her sneers to herself. Dean might have gone over to Crowley but Sam, Sam was a different story. 

She did have another card to play, though. Crowley had some Hellhounds but Meg had always been a better trainer. That wasn’t arrogance, it was simple fact. Even as she and Nicole worked to rebuild her network of demon allies she began rebuilding her pack of canine defenders. Not only would they be better companions than any ten humans or twenty normal demons but they’d be a great defense against Dean “The New Cain” Winchester if he came calling. The guy apparently had such a phobia that a Yorkie could send him up a tree. She supposed she wasn’t in a position to criticize. Most people did, once they had an encounter with a Hellhound. 

By the time her meeting with Abaddon came she actually felt like a real demon again. She might not be what she’d been back during the Apocalypse but she was getting there. She had something to offer the last Knight of Hell, and that was important. She wasn’t going in as some kind of empty-handed supplicant begging for shelter and succor; she was going in as a player in her own right. She dressed up a little for the occasion, having finally fixed the damage done to her meat suit and managed to find clothes she liked for it. Black leather with a purple silk shirt – that should be enough, right? Sam would laugh at her. Good thing he wasn’t here then.

Her phone rang. It was Sam. “Just checking in on you, making sure you’re okay before your meeting.” His voice was quiet but teasing – Dean must be somewhere vaguely nearby.

“I’m fine, Sam.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m a big demon now, remember?” 

“I know, I know. It’s just a big deal. I worry.” 

She thought back to her brief time spent inside his head. She supposed it hadn’t gotten any better over the years. “I remember. You know there’s pills you can take.” 

“Probably not in high enough dosage, all things considered.” Well that much was true. “You getting all dressed up for her?” >

“Shut up, Sam.”

“You are, aren’t you?” 

“Maybe a little.”

“Whatever. Just… call me when you leave, okay? Or text me or something so I know you’re good?”

“Good?” 

“You know what I mean, Meg. Safe.” 

“Aw, that’s so sweet.” 

“Shut up.” 

“I’ll call you when I leave.”

“Thank you.”


	2. I'm Coming On Like A Hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meg and Abaddon meet up and make plans. Meg even finds them an unexpected ally in the battle against Crowley - and in her battle for Abaddon's heart. Of course, when you get two demons out and about looking for a good time things are bound to get a little out of hand, right?

Meg teleported to Boston, materializing in the basement apartment of a building that hadn’t passed fire codes since the New Deal. She didn’t materialize alone, unfortunately. One of the apartment’s residents sat on a swampy little couch directly across from where she materialized. The guy reeked of recreational herbology and of several days without renewing his acquaintance with his shower; a pile of textbooks by his side indicated that he was most likely a college student. “You weren’t here a minute ago,” he told her slowly.

“No, Shaggy. I wasn’t.” She smiled sweetly at him. “Tell me, Shaggy. Do you believe in God?”

“Well Nietzsche says that God is dead –“ 

She gestured with her hand and his head spun three hundred and sixty degrees. It had been a long, long time since she’d had the pleasure of hearing bones crack like that. Sam would have given her that “What the hell are you doing?” look, the “Oh my god you can’t just go around killing people” look. He might have even yelled a bit. Fortunately for everyone involved – except maybe Shaggy – Sam wasn’t here. She walked out of the apartment and onto the street, taking the two blocks to the bar with an extra spring in her step. 

Abaddon was already there of course. A creature that old, that powerful could hardly conceal her essence and Abaddon would probably not really want to anyway. Her hands twitched by her sides – it had been centuries since she’d seen the Knight. What would she say? What would she want from Meg?

She walked into the bar. At this time of day it wasn’t crowded; the few patrons were scattered about and not terribly interested in people not of their party. What would they possibly say or do if they knew about the ancient and terrible power in their midst? Would they run in terror or turn back to their beer and nachos, pretending that it didn’t exist after all? The brunette ignored the not-terribly-perky host and looked around the well-lit dining room for a moment before finding her at a tall table against the wall, in a black leather jacket and a tee shirt that read “The Devil Made Me Do It.” Meg’s mouth went dry, and she hadn’t known that a demon’s mouth could go dry that way. She could see Abaddon’s true form, all black smoke and pulsing hellfire, but the meatsuit she’d chosen was just stunning. It suited the knight perfectly – feminine and graceful and powerful and strong and Meg couldn’t help but stare for a moment.

The older demon spotted her and those full red lips parted in a smile. “Meg,” she greeted in a voice that sent jolts of electricity down her meatsuit’s spine. “It is so good to see you again. Come, sit down, have a drink.” 

She obeyed. How could she not? Her feet moved almost of their own accord. After a second she was able to jolt her brain back into awareness. Abaddon would not welcome demons who couldn’t function when confronted with beauty. “It’s been too long,” she replied as she climbed up into the barstool. “Have you been here a while?” 

“I got here early,” the redhead shrugged. “This place has over a hundred different beers on tap alone. What’s the point of being Queen of Hell if you can’t enjoy the finer things in life?” She passed her guest a menu. “The food is good too.” 

The waitress came over to take their order and Meg selected an IPA pretty much at random. She liked the bitterness. “So I hear you’ve been back for like a year and change?” Meg prodded. 

Magnificent if stolen eyes rolled. “Ugh. Winchesters. I went chasing Henry Winchester into a closet, he cast a frigging time travel spell and both he and I come out in 2013. What the Hell? He couldn’t even get the damn spell right!” She shook her head. “I think he was looking for his son, instead he gets his grandsons.” She shivered. “Savages, both of them.”

“We’ve met.” She laughed a little. “But you’re not wrong. All three are savages. If you think Sam and Dean are bad you should have met their father.” 

“Bad?” 

“At least you can get your drink on with Dean. John didn’t have a single redeeming characteristic. And I’ve actually worn Sam – let me tell you, that was no picnic.” She shuddered. 

“Really? Did you learn anything useful?”

“It was years ago. I learned that he has about as much interest in Hell or Heaven or anything supernatural as he does in the stuff that grows on the underside of old decaying barges. If we’d just leave him alone he’d be happy enough to leave us alone.” She shrugged. Sam had been good to her. “It was Sam who helped me, you know.”

“Was it really?” She raised an eyebrow. “Why would Sam Winchester help a demon? He’s got a bit of a reputation you know.”

She grinned. “Me and Sam, we’ve got a connection. Besides the whole I-wore-his-skin thing.” 

“But the Winchesters are with Crowley,” she frowned. “I mean, can you imagine that? You step forward in time nearly sixty years and Crowley is running Hell? Crowley? How does that even happen?” She took a sip from her beer. 

Meg sighed. “When Lucifer rose Crowley was the only one – the only one with any standing anyway – who wasn’t overjoyed. He didn’t think that Our Father was all that fond of us. Anyway, whatever Lucifer actually thought of us the Apocalypse failed. I think a lot of demons were disillusioned and wanted to try something different… I did what I could but I was too linked to the old regime. Azazel’s daughter, Lucifer’s general.” She made a face. “You know how that goes.” 

“And now you want to fight Crowley again.” 

“I never wanted to stop fighting Crowley,” Meg corrected. “He stabbed me with an angel blade but missed the heart. I hid out in an oil drum and went dormant until Sam figured out I was still around and woke me up. You hate Crowley because of what he did to Hell. Crowley worked with the Winchesters to bring Lucifer down during the Apocalypse so he could take over. He’s a traitor to all demons, to all of Hell. I want him dead as much as you do.” 

Abaddon smiled again and Meg melted. Just a little. “But Meg – I’m still confused. The Winchesters brought you back, and they’re with Crowley.” 

She laughed. “It was just Sam, Abaddon.” 

“They’re really a very matched set.”

“Not anymore. I guess that Dean did something pretty terrible to Sam so he’s not following him blindly like a lost little dog anymore. He has to tread carefully and I don’t think he’ll hurt Dean but he hates Crowley probably as much as I do. And First Blade or no, I think he’d rather you and Dean didn’t meet up. He doesn’t think Dean’s necessarily working for Crowley entirely of his own free will.” Meg sighed. She didn’t want to talk about Sam. Or Dean. “I know I’ve been out of the game for a while, Abaddon, and I don’t have much in the way of armies to offer. I’ve got hellhounds. I can make more and there’s no one else that can train them better or make them faster.” 

“No, there isn’t.” The senior demon smiled as the waitress slipped Meg’s beer onto the table. “You always were tops with the hounds. I always admired that about you.” 

Her stomach fluttered and she felt her cheeks redden. “Really?”

“Oh yes. It’s a rare skill. I was never much good with them myself. You’ve also been talking to some of the other ancients.” 

“I have. They’re… a little more receptive, I guess. Some of them are holding out for results. Some of them are still iffy on the idea of a Knight ruling.” She shrugged. “We’re not going to convince them with words. Only proof that you can think and work and rule in the long term, with ordered and structured evil as well as rivers of blood and walls of fire, are going to bring those people around.”

“What do you get out of all of this?” Abaddon wanted to know. “At the end of the day, what benefit do you derive from working with me? You’re Azazel’s daughter. Surely some of those people at least would rather see you on the throne than me.” 

She grinned. “I don’t care about ruling. It’s not what I was brought up for. You know my father never designated me as his heir. Sure I’d rather rule than have Crowley running around putting queues and sound stages in but I don’t actually care about being Queen myself. I care about what’s best for Hell.” 

Abaddon stared into her eyes for a moment. “Is that so?”

“It is.” 

“I suppose that’s not terribly different from my own view. I don’t see why any of those fossils didn’t decide to do something about the Crowley situation but since they didn’t I think they’ve lost their right to object.” She licked her lips. Meg’s eyes locked onto her tongue. “I’ve heard rumors that Azazel did designate an heir.”

“He did. The heir isn’t interested in ruling either.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I wore his skin. And we’ve discussed the issue since then. Believe me. Sam Winchester is not about to make a run on the throne of Hell.” 

Abaddon’s jaw dropped just as the waitress returned with a tray full of appetizers. “You’re joking.” 

“Honest to Lucifer.” Meg held a hand up. “Long story, but if he chose to do what he needed to he could probably give you a run for your money.”

“Then why doesn’t he? What’s wrong with him?” 

She waved a hand. “His brother gets all butthurt about it. Which makes him get all butthurt about it. Friggin Winchesters. I’m telling you. If the two of them could just get over themselves and even pretend to be reasonably well-adjusted people they’d probably have taken over the world by now.” 

A red eyebrow rose as Abaddon’s perfect mouth bit into a deep-fried shrimp. “Do you think you might have a slightly skewed definition of ‘well-adjusted?’"

Meg helped herself to a piece of quesadilla. “What?” 

They changed to more general topics then, mostly reminiscing about the good old days demons were demons and men cowered in fear as they should and when there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with a bathtub full of blood if that was what you wanted of a morning. Eliza Bathory – that had been one of Abaddon’s protégées. She’d been proud of that one. Meg talked about riding forth with the Great Khan and leaving pyramids of skulls as a warning to those who might resist. Abaddon talked about Andersonville and the decay and violence of the human spirit; it had been like a microcosm of the Pit itself. Meg brought up Altamont and how it hadn’t taken more than a gun to make an unholy mess just a few months after Woodstock. “I remember you at the sack of Rome,” Abaddon told her after the check came. “There was this temple, or maybe it was a church by then. A bunch of patricians had taken refuge in there and you had your hounds and you just let them go to town and I think the blood must have been up to your shins and you were standing there in the middle of it in this white tunic that just clung to your meatsuit. I said to your father, ‘That one’s really something, Azazel. She’s really something.’” 

Meg blushed again. “Really? You remember that long ago? I’d have thought you’d have been busy with other things that day. It was a pretty big day for all of us.” 

“What can I say? You stood out. You still do.” She reached out and touched Meg’s hand. “If you’re still interested in fighting Crowley, Meg, then come with me.” 

The demons left the bar and headed for the alley behind it. Meg could see the medical examiner’s van and more than a few flashing lights near the building in which she’d materialized. Apparently Shaggy had roommates. Once they were out of sight Abaddon took her hand and darkness engulfed them. 

They reappeared in an abandoned warehouse, the preferred abode of demons everywhere. “Welcome to the Bronx,” her hostess informed her, walking immediately. “This isn’t our only base but it’s my favorite at the moment. We’ve got as many operatives keeping eyes and ears out for Crowley as we can. Last I heard he’s become addicted to human blood.” 

Meg laughed out loud. “What, really? A blood junkie?” 

“I guess it was part of a trial to close Hell. I interrupted your little Sam Winchester while he was injecting Crowley.” She glared at Meg briefly. “He set me on fire, you know. Holy oil.” 

The brunette winced. “Ouch. Been there. Done that.” She could still feel the flames if she let herself think about it too much, and the angel’s lips on hers. Which was the more painful memory depended on the moment. “Okay. So we track blood bank robberies until we find him.” 

Some of the overly-muscled demons behind Abaddon exchanged glances. “I’m afraid it’s going to take a few days to find someone with that capability and possess them,” she commented. “But it’s a good idea.” 

Meg grinned. “We already have someone who can do that for us,” she pointed out. “And as luck would have it, he’s waiting for a check-in.”

Abaddon’s face went from intrigued to annoyed. “Winchesters? Really?”

“Look. He’s every bit as invested in ending Crowley as we are. Let’s let him help.” She reached out and put a hand on Abaddon’s. “If he double-crosses us we can kill him.” 

The beauty hesitated. “I want to talk to him. Meet with him.” 

“He’s not going to be too keen on that. Dean keeps him on a pretty short leash and he thinks you’re stealing souls from living human bodies.”

Abaddon pulled back with a hiss. “I would never!” 

“I know. I told him that but he – well, he didn’t get a great impression of you.” She shrugged.

“I want to talk to this man. I want to know who’s been – that’s not right. That’s absolutely – that’s beyond forbidden. I’m a monster but I’m not –“ 

She approached the knight slowly, with her hands visible. “Abaddon,” she said in a quiet, soothing voice. She caught the eyes of the backup demons and dismissed them with her eyes; they fled. “Listen. I know that’s not something you would do. You’re an honorable demon. I know it. You know it. Every demon who has ever interacted with you knows it. I’m going to try to talk Sam into a meeting with you and he’ll know it too. But he’s still going to help us track blood banks because he knows that it’s the right thing to do. Okay?” Abaddon nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. 

Meg took her phone out of her pocket and made the call. Sam, as it turned out, was in fact extremely reluctant to meet face to face with Abaddon. Ultimately the only thing that convinced him to meet with Abaddon was constant cajoling not on the theme of family, not on the theme of revenge, not even on the theme of enmity but on the plain and basic fact that the best way to help Dean would be to get rid of Crowley, and that the best way to get rid of Crowley would be to not try to do it alone. Getting him to start tracking blood bank thefts was a lot less work. It was in fact as simple as, “Can you find a way to track blood bank thefts so we can figure out where Crowley is?” 

To which he replied, “Yeah, sure. It’ll take me about ten minutes to set up a filter by quantity to adjust for probable vampires.” 

Abaddon shook her head in wonder. “I don’t think I’d have tried that.” 

“What?” 

“Asking nicely.” 

“Sam and I have an understanding.” 

“I can see that.” 

Meg raised an eyebrow. “You almost sound jealous.”

“You care for him.”

“Maybe I do. We are allowed to care for our families you know. I cared for Azazel. I cared for Lucifer – I still do, even though I know more now.” She shrugged. “I cared for Castiel. I care for –“ She stopped herself. 

“What’s wrong, Meg?” Abaddon stepped in closer. “Is there something bothering you?” She reached out to stroke Meg’s face. “I can see why He relied on you so heavily, you know.” 

Few people had ever praised Meg all that much – mostly Lucifer, really. Alistair, a little bit. Abaddon, when she’d been very young and training. “You find a cause and you serve it,” the general told her Knight. She’d said it before and she’d say it again. “I’ve committed to you, Abaddon.” 

“And I’m grateful, Meg.”

She bit her lip. She wasn’t entirely sure how to feel here, how to respond. “There’s nothing to be grateful for until we win,” she observed. 

The redhead laughed and pulled back, her hand trailing lingeringly across Meg’s cheek as she moved. “I guess that’s a good point.” She started stalking off toward another part of the hideout. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun along the way.” 

Well. Meg knew exactly how to feel about that. And it wasn’t good about the missed opportunity that was for sure. 

It took Sam a few days to make it to the frankly seedy tavern in central Jersey that Abaddon had selected as the meet-up spot. The place was sufficiently grungy that even Meg thought it could use a visit from the Board of Health or maybe just a match, but Sam had literally grown up in places like this so he’d probably feel right at home. The two demons took a seat at a table in the corner where they could see the entrance and the kitchen doors; of course within about five minutes a couple of mouth-breathers approached. “Let us buy you a couple of drinks,” the first demanded, eyes on Abaddon’s cleavage as he signaled for a waitress. 

“That’s okay, thanks,” Meg told him through a thin smile. “We’re waiting for someone.” 

“Yeah, but you found us, babe,” the other guy replied with a grin. “I’m Dennis. This is Troy.”

“Hi, Dennis. Hi, Troy.” Abaddon showed all her teeth before blowing a kiss to Troy. As she did, a tiny little puff of black smoke floated over to him and into his lungs as he inhaled. She darted an amused glance at Meg, whose grin became more genuine. Abaddon really knew how to party. 

She followed suit. Her little smoke ring wasn’t as perfectly formed as Abaddon’s and didn’t float as smoothly but Dennis snapped to just as jerkily as Troy did. Abaddon winked at her. “Dennis,” Meg purred. “Troy was having some very naughty ideas about your wife just a moment ago. About the things she could do with that mouth of hers. I wonder – should you really be going around hitting on women in bars with a man who wants to do things like that to the mother of your children?” Dennis went red in the face. Meg giggled. 

Abaddon laughed a little. “Come on, Troy. If he cared he wouldn’t be encouraging you to be alone with her so often. And it’s not like you didn’t see him eyeing your sister last week. I think you should hit him.” She gestured and Troy wound up and decked Dennis. Dennis reeled with the punch. 

“Are you really going to take that?” Meg wondered into the mustachioed man’s ear. “From a guy who’s only half a step away from stealing your woman from you?” Dennis got up and dealt a vicious uppercut to Troy’s jaw, knocking him into the pool table.

This in turn disrupted the pool game, which went over about as well as could possibly be expected considering the high-stakes game taking place and by now neither demon needed to influence a thing. Within a minute the sound of a pool cue being cracked over someone’s head could be heard over the blaring jukebox. Within five minutes they got the sound of breaking glass and the unmistakable scent of blood. 

Within ten Sam was looming over them, watching the chaos with a shake of his head and a little twist of his lips that almost approximated a smile. “Seriously?” 

“Why do you have to assume that has anything to do with us?” Meg pouted.

“Because you’re the only ones not involved,” he retorted. “And if I try I can see a trace of you over the ugly one bleeding on the floor.” He sat down. “It’s good to see you, Meg.” He glanced over at Meg’s companion. “Abaddon.”

She sniffed. “Planning to set me on fire today, Sam?”

“It wasn’t on the agenda, no. I try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum when I’m around civilians. There tends to be a lot of running and screaming. Causes migraines, makes it hard to work. You know how it is. Planning to chuck me through any windows today?” 

Meg snorted. It was good to know that the kid hadn’t lost any of his sass through all of the crap in his life.

The knight’s smile was a little more genuine. “I think I’m getting enough entertainment from the in-flight show at the moment, thanks.” A waitress approached and she ordered a pitcher for the table. “I hope you don’t mind our having a little bit of fun.” 

He shrugged. “It doesn’t exactly draw attention. The staff hasn’t even called the cops, you know? Besides, it kind of makes me feel nostalgic. Meg said you wanted to meet up.” 

She nodded gracefully. “Some of the old guard haven’t given their allegiance to Crowley,” she explained carefully, “but they’re unwilling to give their allegiance to me because Azazel’s designated heir is still out there.”

Meg burst out laughing at the look on Sam’s face. “Oh for the love of – seriously? I don’t know how to be any clearer about not wanting any part of Hell. No part. I mean, how do you say ‘no thanks’ more clearly than by putting Lucifer back into his goddamn cage and jumping in with him?” He shook his head. 

Abaddon chuckled a little, probably more or less involuntarily. “That’s the thing with demons, Sam. The only way anyone cares what we actually want is if we make them care.” 

His face could be a dissertation. “I don’t give a crap who rules Hell, okay? Hell and I have nothing to do with each other.”

“Hell is in your blood, like it or not,” she challenged. 

“So is nitrogen but I’m not moving to Pluto anytime soon,” he retorted. “I mean, look. There have been demons I’ve gotten along with. There have been demons I’ve actually been pretty fond of.” 

“Aw, thanks, Sam,” Meg drawled, even though she had to admit that it felt pretty good to hear that admission from him.

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m interested in being a player in infernal politics,” he continued. “It’s something that was inflicted on me, okay? I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from it. If it weren’t for the whole stealing the souls of living people thing –“ 

“I am not doing that!” she hissed, eyes going black in her rage. Meg grabbed her hand and she calmed slightly. “I demand to know by what right you question my honor.”

“There was a convent, Saint Bonaventure. It’s the place where you possessed Josie Sands.” He wasn’t cowed by her display even knowing what she could do. Abaddon nodded curtly and he continued. “The site is abandoned now but one of the possessed nuns was still active there, a Sister Agnes. She was harvesting souls from the living and she told me it was on your orders. I’ve found other factories that were also harvesting souls since then.” 

“And what did you do with the souls?” the knight wanted to know. Meg squeezed her hand.

“I freed them. I’ve been soulless,” he spat back. “I’m not about to let that happen to anyone else.” 

“Good,” she returned. “I want an army, yes. A loyal one. And Crowley having the First Blade and a good loyal little dog answering to me is a problem. But first of all, I’m an honorable knight. I’m trying to restore Hell, not debase it the way Crowley has. Secondly, Agnes and I worked together under Azazel but we weren’t friends. She wasn’t working for me. I haven’t had the time to set up those factories in any way that would actually benefit me yet. Those are Crowley’s factories. Thirdly, turning souls into demons just turns them into demons. You can’t ensure a demon’s loyalty. We’re demons. We choose to be loyal or not. We’re not angels, we don’t have programming.” 

Sam considered this. “All right.”

Meg blinked. “Really?” 

“I was starting to question Agnes’ insistence that it was all for Abaddon when I noticed how extensive the network of factories was.” He shrugged. “Your explanation seemed reasonable. Here’s the thing. I’m willing to help you with Crowley to the extent that I can – I’m not going to juice myself back up, no one wants that, but there are other ways that I can help. I’ve got one condition.” 

“What’s that?” 

“We save Dean.” 

Abaddon frowned. “Did you miss the part where he has the Mark of Cain and is trying to kill me?” 

“It’s kind of hard to miss that part, Abaddon. It doesn’t exactly make him a joy to live with, believe me. But Crowley engineered that, Crowley pushed him into that when he was grieving for Kevin, and he wasn’t really giving informed consent. That’s all I want. We save Dean, we don’t treat him like a target. Is it a deal?”

Abaddon glanced at Meg. Meg met her eyes and nodded. The knight didn’t know enough about Sam to know how useful he could be but Meg did; Meg also knew just what a pain in the ass he could be if they didn’t work with him. If a not-dead brother was the price of his assistance, or at least an attempt at a not-dead brother, then it was probably worth it. “Fine. We’ll make a good-faith effort to not have your brother die. But we’re not sacrificing ourselves or each other for him.” She felt something flutter inside her at the caveat about not sacrificing each other for Dean. 

“Valid,” he agreed as the waitress returned with their pitcher and some glasses. “He is trying to kill you.”

“Should we seal the deal?” she asked him, and quirked her eyebrow up. 

The corners of his mouth twitched a little. “How about if we just shake on it and Meg does the kissing?”

The women exchanged glances. Meg blushed. So, surprisingly, did Abaddon. All three laughed a little. “Tell me about the blood banks,” the knight instructed. 

The meeting continued with a lot less tension. Sam explained how he’d narrowed down the pattern in blood bank robberies and occasional disappearances and backed it up with security camera footage of Crowley to show his movements across the country. He also explained how the Mark was affecting Dean, giving him an added layer of bloodlust and dickery that Meg found frankly repugnant. He explained that Crowley was holding the Blade hostage to ensure Dean’s good behavior and through Dean Sam’s. Abaddon, in her turn, shared the preparations she’d been making. She warned her newest ally to stay specifically away from New Orleans and from San Diego, and told him about the hideout in the Bronx. She shared the work Meg had been doing among the old guard and with the hellhounds and the brunette smiled at the note of awe in her old mentor’s voice. When the beer was gone they parted ways, with the demons returning to their not-actually-abandoned warehouse and the human starting his long journey back to wherever it was that he went. 

Abaddon turned to Meg. “I believe,” she told her calmly, “that you have a family deal to seal.”

If Meg had had a heart it would have raced in her chest. She didn’t fake the happy smile that creased her lips when she laughed and stepped forward to cradle the senior demon’s face with her hands, touching her own dark lips to Abaddon’s red ones. Meg had dreamed about kissing Abaddon for centuries. As a very young demon, fresh from the rack, she’d seen in Abaddon everything that she wanted to be. She’d sought out the senior fiend for training hoping that by emulating her style and her grit she might become worthy of either serving her or being her or perhaps being with her, she didn’t know. She’d been too low-ranking, of course, and she hadn’t been a Knight. She’d had to rely on other skills, other talents and other assets. Abaddon had always been in the back of her mind as an icon, an inspiration. Now here she was with her hero’s mouth on hers, their hands in each others’ hair and their tongues seeking the last vestiges of beer and sulfur in each other’s mouths.

“Come with me,” the redhead demanded, taking her hand. The would-be queen teleported her to a bedroom – an actual bedroom, with clean sheets on the bed and everything. “It’s an apartment in Brooklyn,” she explained. “I come here when I want to wash up or something.” She stroked Meg’s face. “You’ve done well, Meg.”

She smiled and kissed her queen’s palm. “Thank you.” 

The knight guided her over to the bed and kissed her again. This time there was a lot less laughter and a lot more intent. Meg didn’t laugh either, just shook her jacket off. Abaddon helped her with the rest.


	3. If Good's On The Left Then I'm Sticking To The Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything intensifies - the hunt for Crowley, the affair between Meg and Abaddon. Encounters with old "friends" complicate matters.

Of course, finding Crowley and being able to do something about him were two different things entirely. If Meg thought he’d been slippery before he was even worse now that he was the one on the run. Sam set up a website that allowed her to track Crowley’s actions using the techniques he’d described but without his active involvement because that was important. Dean had kept a pretty suspicious eye on little Sammy for a while now and it hadn’t gotten better with the Mark of Cain; he had to be very careful about his conversations and his texting.

Fortunately neither Meg nor Abaddon were exactly shrinking violets. Sam tipped them off to the existence of one of the “demon factories” in Mansfield, Ohio, on the grounds of an old stove manufactory. Some of their colleagues and allies wanted to ignore the manufactories – they weren’t exactly high priority targets since the demons thus manufactured would not necessarily be loyal to Crowley and they hadn’t actually produced any demons yet, and getting rid of Crowley would get solve the need for the factories in the first place. Both Meg and Abaddon disagreed. Disrupting the operations at this stage kept Crowley busy trying to establish the factories instead of allowing them to run themselves. It also frustrated him, leading him to hopefully make less rational or well-reasoned decisions. Hence the assault on Mansfield, Ohio. 

Intelligence showed three demons guarding the facility. That was okay; Meg could take them. She grabbed her hounds and took the job on herself with an angel blade and a bad attitude. She thought about walking right up to the front door and knocking – she liked to make a big entrance sometimes. At the same time she really, really needed to not let Crowley know she’d survived. Not yet. 

She decided to sneak around the back and let herself in through a back door. Most of the building was derelict, which was the kind of thing that happened when structures were left vacant since 1950 or so, but she was able to make her way through the rubble and occasional mummified rodent to find places where the sky didn’t actually peer through the roof. A lot of factories were set up in such a way that the manufacturing floor was a large, open space with office space and storage space off of that floor. The equipment was all long gone now, of course – recycled to wherever the original company had moved or sold (or stolen) for scrap – but the office areas still remained and it was here that Meg sensed that her “brethren” awaited her. 

She could see the occasional smudge of sulfur on the floor, hear their voices from time to time. There was a window, of course – how else would the manager be able to look out over his little worker bees? – but shades had been drawn so that she could see only shadows. She privately wondered why they bothered with the shades in here – clearly there was nothing that they needed to keep private, the only eyes that would be looking at the office belonged to the occasional unfortunate rat, but whatever. It was in a demon’s nature to be secretive.

She drew closer, keeping the hounds perfectly silent, and skittered half a brick across the cement floor. “Did you hear that?” a male voice demanded. He sounded tall, but she couldn’t tell which of the three was speaking.

“Probably just another raccoon,” a bored-sounding female commented. “Play your cards, Ralph.” 

She almost snorted. The mighty demon Ralph. Somehow the idea didn’t leave her quaking in her boots. 

“Go check on it, Lise,” a third voice directed, probably another male and equally bored.

A demon in a heavy-set meatsuit emerged from the office. She looked around and closed the door behind herself. Meg acted quickly, gesturing with her hand to close up the meatsuit’s throat and ensure that no sound escaped. She didn’t do that often. After all, she generally liked the screaming – it was part of the appeal of the whole fighting and killing thing for her. Right now though she was on a mission and that had to take precedence. She drove the angel blade into Lise’s sternum and watched as the lights flickered for a moment. When she dropped the corpse to the floor she stabbed her again in the throat for good measure – she wasn’t about to make the same mistake Crowley had. 

Ralph and his apparent supervisor seemed to be quick enough on the uptake to notice that Lise had taken longer to investigate a stupid raccoon than she should have. They had already risen to their feet when she opened the door but that didn’t matter. A pair of hellhounds each ensured that they weren’t going anywhere. She was able to stand back and watch, ensuring that neither of them had the chance to smoke out of their meatsuits or make a call to the home office or wherever to report the sudden setback. Within five minutes the walls were covered in blood. She used the angel blade to ensure that the demons were in fact granted the peace of oblivion and went to find the souls.

Part of her rebelled at this aspect of the mission. She was not some hero, she was no saint. Human souls were of no interest to her; even her meatsuit’s little spirit had vacated the premises a long time ago and good riddance to the whining little cow. Let little brother go on and on about this and that and saving people and all that jazz; if he wanted to pretend to be some kind of savior let him. She was a demon and she liked it. Human souls were weak and frankly kind of pointless. Unfortunately just leaving the things here meant that when Crowley’s little cronies got around to checking in on the suddenly quiet stove factory crew the souls they’d already harvested would still be sitting there waiting for them and this whole exercise would be pointless. She poked through the storage areas until she realized that she hadn’t needed to go poking at all; fifteen souls in jars lit up a room about two hundred times better than any kind of fluorescent lighting ever could. 

Her breath caught at the sight. This… this was something. Had she ever had – had she ever been something like this before? Had she – an entity of infinite black smoke and power that remembered the days when Christianity was just a really weird offshoot of Judaism – ever born the slightest resemblance to one of these wispy, delicate things? 

Of course she hadn’t. She couldn’t really remember the time before she’d become a demon but she’d never been fully human, she’d been one of the “other generations” her father had once mentioned to Sam. She’d been created to become a demon and delicacy like this wispy creatures in jars had never been her medium. She dealt in power, in strength, in survival. She wouldn’t want to be a wisp in a jar, patiently waiting for rescue like some kind of victim. Maybe black smoke and sulfur couldn’t light up a room but they could sure as Hell tear one down. She started unscrewing the lids from the jars, tossing them behind her once the vessels were empty just for the pleasure of hearing them break. 

She considered bringing one back as a pet for Abaddon, but ultimately decided against it. Sam would get all angsty about it if he found out and besides, keeping souls in jars, however they got that way, ran the risk of making her as big a scumbag as Crowley. It was pretty, though. She took a picture and sent that to her lover instead. 

When she got back to the Bronx, Abaddon was waiting for her. She was proud of her general, and she wanted to show it. Yeah, the human souls could take their glowing little wisps or whatever and flit off back to their owners. She’d take the feel of Abaddon, the taste of Abaddon, the scent of Abaddon over anything they had any day of the week.

Getting to enjoy Abaddon’s company was a rare pleasure. It wasn’t like there was a war on or anything. Neither woman was exactly the type to lead from the rear and neither was particularly fond of inaction. At a word from Sam Abaddon was following up on a Crowley sighting outside of Rapid City while Meg chased after another factory near Provo. They managed to reunite briefly for one torrid, sheet-soaking, neighbor-terrifying night near Casper only to be pulled apart when Crowley went after some of Abaddon’s men in Billings and diverted some of his resources to going after Tammuz in Pueblo. Since Tammuz was on the fence and was Meg’s contact that made him Meg’s problem.

Meg teleported to her father’s friend’s living room. He was wearing a dark-skinned older man, impeccably groomed. “Nice suit,” she commented, looking him up and down. “Did you pick him just because he has Morgan Freeman’s hair?” 

The older demon raised his eyebrows. “You know, I didn’t think of that. It was the profession that drew me in. He was a man of the cloth. You know I always loved taking priests.” 

She acknowledged the truth of this. The old devil had never been picky about the gender of his hosts or the religion of the priest he possessed, but he did always insist that he took spiritual leaders of some sort. Was it the extra challenge or the irony that held the appeal for him? “I got your call,” she told him. “The streets look pretty calm and I know you’re not an alarmist. What’s going on?”

“The Winchesters,” he spat. “I saw that rolling phallus parked at the sleaziest motel in town yesterday.” 

Meg cursed. “We can’t have that,” she admitted. “Did you see both of them or just one?”

“Just the car.” 

“All right. Let me see if I can get any information.” She pulled out her phone and sent Sam a quick text, demanding to know what the fuck he was doing in Pueblo. 

She was rewarded with a telephone call. “I’m not in Pueblo,” he told her crossly. “I’m in our super-secret hideout researching how to get that damn brand off my brother. He got a call yesterday, hung up and took off without another word.” 

“Well he’s here in Pueblo and he’s got one of our allies treed.”

Sam barked out an expletive she’d only ever heard from Lucifer, and even then only once. “Okay. Um. Try to keep them apart, okay? I’ll see what I can do.”

“I don’t think there’s a lot you can do from all the way wherever you are, hot stuff. But if you can think of a way to snap him out of it without snapping that perfect little neck of his I’m all ears.” 

“Usually I have to talk to him to bring him around. I’d say pray to Cas or something but the angels can’t teleport anymore.” 

Meg smirked. “Power of wuv doesn’t exactly cut it for demons, li’l bro,” she pointed out, trying to keep his name out of it. Tammuz was a nice enough guy – for someone who liked to bite the heads off religious acolytes as a snack – but she wouldn’t say she trusted him with Sam’s involvement in their plot. “We’ll just have to go with plan B.” 

Both the demon and the human had the same question: “What’s plan B?” 

“Something that’s always worked a little better for me. Listen up. If I can get the damn car to someplace specific is there any way that you can get it back to wherever it is that you’re squatting or whatever?” 

She could feel the eyeroll in her own eyes if she didn’t actively try not to block it. That was the problem with trying to have a relationship with people you’d possessed before, especially when you actually shared blood with them. “Yes, Meg. I think I can manage that.”

“Good boy. You might even get a biscuit when this is all over.” 

“I’m pretty sure I don’t want whatever kind of treat it is that you feed your dogs.” 

She had a good twenty hellhounds at her disposal at the moment, hounds that weren’t busy with other tasks or already out with Abaddon chasing Crowley down. She called them all to her now. She didn’t want to do this. Demons weren’t supposed to get attached to things like dogs but would be sincerely sad if any of the little snarling balls of hate got hurt. Her entire gambit depended on the Mark not having managed to erase Dean’s old phobias enough to matter at the end of the day. 

“Your plan has halitosis,” Tammuz informed her, nose disdainfully in the air. 

Meg bit back a retort that involved the demon’s last girlfriend; they still needed him. Instead she smiled sweetly. “Wait until you get a load of Dean,” she told him. 

They didn’t have to wait long. Dean put in his appearance as himself, not as an FBI agent or an insurance adjustor or a reporter or a priest. Apparently when he was on a mission for Crowley Dean didn’t bother playing dress-up. He walked right up to the front door and kicked it in. Meg rolled her eyes and hid in the kitchen with her protégé and the hounds, waiting. “Tammuz!” the hunter yelled. Meg made a face. Sam hadn’t been exaggerating. Even Dean’s voice was different – harsher, devoid of humanity. “Tammuz! I know you’re in here damn it! Come out and fight like a man!” 

She held the dogs back and kept them quiet. Even Crowley couldn’t keep his dogs silent, not like she could. 

Dean’s footsteps echoed in the house, landing hard enough to break the tile floor. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp – that was far enough to pass the doorway. Stomp, stomp, stomp – now he had turned away from the door and toward the fireplace. Stomp, stomp. “Tammuz!” he roared again. 

Meg released the hounds. The sound should have been enough to terrify any ten men, but this was Dean Winchester. He’d been to Purgatory. She had to let them get close enough for him to smell them, close enough to feel their hot breath on his face. Okay, and maybe she didn’t mind if he got a little chewed up. She’d promised to make a good faith effort not to let him get killed, not to wrap him in cotton batting and rock him to sleep. Still, she put on her best wicked smile as she walked into the living room. The poor guy’s skin had gone so pale that his freckles actually stood out and sweat poured from his body like his pores were fountains. He still gripped that angel blade though. She told the hounds to sit and they did, even as she used her telekinesis to pin Dean to the wall. She reached up and grabbed him by the neck. “Sleep now, Dean-o,” she ordered him, and reached out with her mind to make sure that he did.

Dean Winchester slumped, unconscious, into her arms. Tammuz raised an eyebrow. “Would you like for me to dispose of that for you?” 

“He’s got the Mark of Cain, Tammuz,” she pointed out. “I don’t think he can be disposed of. I’ve got someone working on that, though. In the meantime I know where I can leave him. If you have any more problems with him let me know.” 

She dismissed the dogs and teleported into the car, then fished the keys out of his pocket and drove back to his motel. Once at the motel she called Sam. Sam was there in ten minutes. “How did you manage that?” she demanded when she answered the door.

“I told you. Ancient secret society lair. You learn things. I don’t suppose you can keep him asleep for another seven hours or so?” 

She thought about it for a second, reached out and made a few adjustments. “No charge.”

He gave her half a grin. “Thanks, Meg. Hopefully we can get this whole thing over with soon.” He picked Dean up in a fireman’s carry and tucked him carefully into the passenger seat of the Impala. He even stole a motel blanket to tuck in carefully around him. “At least this way he’ll get a decent night’s sleep out of the deal.” He looked her over. “He didn’t give you any problems, did he?” 

“No, I’m not sure he ever knew I was there. I’ll be in touch, Sam.”

She teleported back to the Bronx. Abaddon followed three days later, a little beat up and with no Crowley to show for it. She did have the heads of three perfidious followers to take it out on, though, so that was something. They hung them from one of the light fixtures to make the place feel more like a home. Meg was able to console her with Tammuz’ declaration of support – which brought in Kafkefoni as well, apparently she was only waiting – and a bubble bath in one of the old, elegant hotels overlooking Central Park. Abaddon was a Queen. A queen deserved nice things, especially if her mission hadn’t gone as planned. 

Sometimes they even managed to fight by each other’s sides, and those were the best times of all. Bubble baths were all well and good but blood baths were better and it wasn’t like Crowley was their only enemy. They had angels to contend with too, because while the angels apparently preferred to fight amongst themselves evidently they weren’t about to stop themselves from taking out a demon or two if the opportunity arose. “They think they’re so much better than we are,” Abaddon sneered. “As though they have some kind of moral superiority over us because they were never human.” 

“They might not have any kind of moral superiority over us,” retorted Tammuz over a strategy meeting one day, “but they certainly have a superiority in terms of power. They can smite us at a touch.” 

“Maybe,” Meg smirked. “But our claws still cut them, our powers still affect them and our spells still have bite against them. Alistair had a spell that could pull an angel out of its vessel.” 

“Do you have that spell?” the redhead demanded, not letting much enthusiasm inflect her voice. Meg knew what she actually felt so that was okay. 

“No. It wasn’t necessary when I apprenticed under him. But I know who can probably find it.” She smirked. “I know about it because Li’l Bro was there when he last used it.”

“Interesting.” Tammuz stroked his chin. “It’s worth looking into.” 

Meg knew from angels, of course. She’d had the pleasure of their company during the Apocalypse, and then after during the whole running and hiding thing. She didn’t have Sam’s visceral hatred for the feather duster crowd – she didn’t buy the whole righteousness thing but as far as she was concerned they didn’t need to ever really cross paths, just like it had been in the olden days.

Of course, Sam had never been in love with an angel. Meg had. She wasn’t anymore. Her angel had left her for dead, more than once. She’d believed that he’d loved her once and she’d even believed he’d felt something for her back before he’d broken his little feathery brain, but apparently all of that had gone away once he’d gone to Purgatory. If it had ever been there to begin with. It naturally followed that she would encounter him again, because life always seems to work like that. 

It happened when they were hot on Crowley’s trail, hot being the operative word, hopping the border between Florida and Georgia like it was the foul line in a baseball game. The bastard had figured out somehow that they must be using security cameras to track him – probably because he hadn’t gotten as far as he had by being a total idiot – and gotten a shifter to impersonate him, which of course was tripping the facial recognition software Sam had set up so Meg and Abaddon didn’t need to rely on direct contact with him. By the time they figured out he wasn’t actually there it was too late. He’d have changed already. After about two hours of hopping from bank to bank and backwater to backwater Meg finally got hold of Sam, who took a look at the footage and told her that the shifter was only present in three-quarters of the video and explained about the reflective eyes. Crowley’s actual footage was leading them further into Florida where there were reports of more people without souls, so possibly a new factory as well. 

The duo groaned. Which to address – Crowley or the factory? “Crowley is likely to give us the slip again,” Abaddon pointed out. 

“Let’s try the factory. They at least seem to piss him off.” 

They set course for the factory. Of course once they found the factory they found it filled with a good seven demons – more than they’d bargained for, by far. They might be able to take them but then again, they might not. Of course, the two angels standing in the middle of the circle of demons were another matter. “Clarence?” Meg gasped involuntarily. 

“Abaddon,” Castiel sneered. A female angel with dark hair stood back-to-back with him, both with their angel blades drawn. “I should have known that you’d come to defend your abomination factory. I didn’t expect that you’d fall back into such bad habits, Meg.” 

She shook her head. “Clarence, Clarence, Clarence. Always flying to judgment. Oh wait- you can’t actually fly, can you?” She stepped forward and stabbed one of the demons encircling the angels. “It’s a good thing you’re cute.” 

Abaddon raised an eyebrow. “You think he’s cute?” One of the other demons tried to stab up and through her ribcage; the knight blocked it easily and tore through him like ripping silk. The angels gaped. 

Two more demons came after Meg. She used her ability to manipulate souls to send them to their knees, howling in pain. “Any time you glowing peacocks want to join in would be a good time,” she urged, stabbing her victims at the base of their skulls as another went after Abaddon. 

“Right.” The two angels each reached forward and touched the forehead of a demon, releasing their light into the room and smiting them. Meg grimaced. She was used to some terrible smells but the scent left behind after a smiting always lingered, the way old cigarettes never seemed to come out of your clothes after one night at a smoky bar. “Meg, what are you doing here?” Castiel wanted to know. “Why are you helping Abaddon steal souls?” 

“Where did you hear that Abaddon is stealing souls?” she smirked. “Dean? Dean is working for Crowley, you nincompoop.” 

“Nincompoop?” Abaddon repeated.

“What? It works.” 

“Better the devil you know,” the strange woman angel retorted.

“As it happens, honey, I’ve known both of them for a very, very long time and I’m in a position to tell you that Hell is in much better hands under Abaddon than under Crowley.” She grinned. “I like those hands.” 

Castiel grimaced. “Meg, she’s a knight of Hell.” 

“And I’m Azazel’s daughter. Remember?” She snorted. “What, you thought that a few kisses and a little fooling around was going to change my whole species? Fat chance. I’m a demon. I’ve always been a demon. I always will be a demon. I may be capable of doing good but I like doing good while I’m doing bad, Cas. Now come on. Do you want to free those souls or what?” They stopped. “What?”

It was the woman angel again. “You. A demon. Want to… save souls.”

It was Abaddon’s turn to roll her eyes. “We take souls when it’s their time. We want them to be corrupted, yes, but only by their own choices. You can’t just take a soul out of a living body and turn it. That’s not… no. That’s not how it works. You go to Hell because of the choices you made, whether you sold your soul or because of your sins. Not because someone came along and did something to you. That’s just repugnant.” She turned and looked at Meg. “Really? This guy?” 

“What? He was a good kisser. And you weren’t available.”

She sniffed, but held Meg’s hand as she stormed off to find the souls. The storming ceased as soon as they were away from the celestial beings. “I don’t think I like him,” Abaddon informed her. “He wasn’t very nice.” 

“He’s had better moments,” she admitted. “Right now I can’t remember what I ever saw in him.” She kissed her lover deeply, wallowing in the taste and the feel of her mouth. “Come on. Let’s find those souls before the God Squad gets to be all self-righteous about it. I like the idea of them having to remember that it was demons who saved souls and not angels, don’t you?” 

Abaddon’s laughter followed her all the way to the storage room.


	4. Won't Take No Prisoners, Won't Spare No Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final showdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for gendered slurs.

Meg wouldn’t have described them as “ready” when the time came for the final showdown with Crowley. Sam hadn’t found a way to remove the Mark from Dean. He’d found some way to “maybe numb it, possibly, I mean it worked for Cain right?” but he hadn’t found any way to definitively erase that taint from his brother’s arm or his soul. They hadn’t shut down all of the soul-stealing factories or even found them yet. They hadn’t brought on all of the old guard – Hegel was a particular holdout – and they hadn’t prevented Crowley from making more alliances with non-demonic creatures. Meg even suspected the old goat of tying a few angels into his gross little web.

What they did have was Crowley running scared, and by “scared” she meant running harder and faster than he’d been running during the Apocalypse or maybe even when Castiel had decided to crown himself God. That meant he was desperate, and in his desperation he had collected Dean Winchester and given him the First Blade. The results were predictable, because of course he hadn’t given him the Blade while he was anywhere near Sam. According to Sam – who was the only living witness, other than Crowley – the only thing that had brought Dean down from whatever the effect of the Blade was on him was Sam’s voice. 

So even though they weren’t ready, even though it wasn’t the right time, they had to bring all of their forces to the field of Crowley’s choosing and fight it out with him there. “I hate this,” Meg fretted as she sent word to her allies and those under her command. “I hate the thought that we’re dancing to his tune, even a little bit.” 

“I know.” Abaddon carded her fingers through Meg’s hair. “I’m not exactly a fan myself. But this is something we can do, Meg. It’s not ideal, but we can still win this.” 

“How is it a win if Dean has the Blade?” she seethed. “He can kill you with that thing!”

“He can,” she admitted with a smirk. “Doesn’t mean that he will.”

“You sound like Sam.”

“He does have intelligent things to say every once in a while. Not often, but sometimes.” She kissed her. “Come on. Tomorrow is big. Let’s make tonight big too.” She helped Meg off with her shirt, and Meg helped her off with hers. They took their time with each other that night; it wasn’t like they needed to sleep, all of the preparations that could be made had been made and if tonight was going to be their last night together then Meg was at least certain she was going to make it count. 

Morning arrived far too quickly for her tastes, but she got up and prepared to head out anyway. The battlefield chosen was a clearing in a state park in Massachusetts. Odd that such a bucolic location would be the site for what was certain to be a slaughter of epic proportions but what could you really do? At least this way fewer civilians would be likely to get caught up in the crossfire. While neither Meg nor Abaddon had a problem with the death of innocents they both had a strong preference for those deaths to be deliberate, not something that just kind of happened because someone wasn’t paying attention. It was about quality, really. Plus no one really wanted to listen to Sam get his guts all tied up about it. 

Their quarry stood across the field from where Abaddon’s host materialized, Meg having fetched Sam on her way in. Crowley stood at the center of a long line of creatures – mostly demons, but he had a few werewolves and shifters and even a couple of vampires with him too. He sneered when he saw Abaddon’s cohort. “Whore,” he greeted Meg. “And Moose. After all I’ve done for you.” He turned his attention to his true rival. “Adopting Azazel’s orphans, are we Abby darling? Or just Lucifer’s sloppy seconds?” 

Meg snarled but a pale, elegant hand on her shoulder calmed her. “Sam’s doing what’s right for his family,” Abaddon informed the salesman coldly.

“Sam has never given a crap about his family,” Dean spat. Meg hadn’t noticed the Mark on his arm the last time she’d seen him but now, with his sleeves rolled up and the damn thing glowing and pulsing like a lava floe, she couldn’t very well ignore it. “Or maybe he just likes that side of his family better, is that it, Sammy? Huh?” 

“It’s the Mark talking, Sam,” Meg warned him in a low voice. “Don’t listen to him.”

“I could blow him into a thousand shards if you’d like,” Tammuz offered, not unkindly.

“The Mark, remember?” Sam’s mouth quirked up a little. “But thanks. I appreciate the offer.” 

“Are we going to talk, Crowley? Or are we going to settle the problem of Hell once and for all?” Abaddon wanted to know. “Because you bringing your little dog here and the First Blade kind of suggests that the time for talking is long since over.” Meg eyed his troops. They’d been strung out across the treeline so that it looked like there were a lot of them, but there was only one line of them. There were a lot of creatures, both demonic and other, getting in the way of her senses but she didn’t get the impression that they had any reinforcements en route.

Crowley gave one of the nastiest smiles she’d ever seen and opened up a curse box. “Let’s dance then, shall we?” Dean had already reached in and grabbed the First Blade by the time that the words were out of Crowley’s foul, bearded mouth. Once it was in his hands there was nothing left to say or do but fight. 

Fortunately fighting was something that Meg actually enjoyed. She released her hounds. She’d lose some of them and that wasn’t something she looked forward to but this was war and some losses were inevitable. They might not be able to do much against the werewolves or the shifters, but a hellhound could certainly behead a vampire with its jaws and it didn’t take long for her pets to do exactly that.

Meg of course had other concerns. She set a course due Crowley, fully intent on getting his slimy skin between her hands and tearing it from his frame with nothing but her teeth and claws. She could do it too, she was older than he was and she was Azazel’s daughter to boot. The problem was that Crowley’s loyalists expected her to charge him and deployed to defend him. She punched through the meatsuit of one enemy and spread its ribs wide, damaging it to the point where the demon inside was forced to smoke out and go find another host. Her angel blade found a home deep in the skull of another assailant – there was no way it was going to fake its final death the way she had faked hers. A werewolf charged in and bit into her side, tearing a chunk out of the tender flesh of her abdomen and the shirt that covered it. She grunted in pain and stabbed it with the angel blade, which worked as well as silver when it came to such things. A human would have been incapacitated by that bite. Meg was not human. She was thousands of years old and the pain just added fuel to the fire that was Meg. She lashed out with her power and caught a shifter as it tried to stab her with a silver knife – really, what did it think that was going to do? Its head exploded, neatly solving the problem of the lack of silver as she turned her attention to another nameless demon that was trying to hamstring her. Such an act would definitely impede her ability to either kill Crowley or defend Abaddon and that was simply unacceptable. 

An explosion rocked the field and Meg found herself thrown to the ground by concussive force. Sam stood with a repurposed whiskey bottle maybe thirty feet from a circle of char and destruction; a few flames licked at the edges. His expression was grim but his expression was always grim. He might have also been cut or stabbed or something; he was bleeding a bit from the arm but it didn’t seem to bother him much. Meg took a moment to check on her lover. Abaddon had not been knocked down by the blast; she was fortunately far enough away from it that she’d been able to withstand the force. Ten bodies had piled up around her and while plenty of splatter had decorated her beautiful face none of it seemed to have come from her. Even as Meg watched Abaddon grabbed another demon and drove her angel blade right up into the creature’s skull from behind the chin. There was another Crowley supporter they wouldn’t be seeing again.

Meg scrambled to her feet faster than the demons around her and took out another two before they recovered from the blast. All around her she heard the baying and barking of her hounds, the screaming and the snarling of the combatants. She tore into a vampire – who cared if the blood got into an open wound? She was immune to their disease. When the next blast shattered the air Meg was ready for it and she didn’t fall. She was more than happy to stab through those who did, of course. 

And then there was Crowley. Crowley didn’t lead like Abaddon led. He hid behind his followers, only bothering to fight when someone got through the thick screen of beings shielding him. When he had to he could certainly hold his own, Meg had experienced that first-hand, but he had always preferred to let others do the dirty work for him. He was more in favor of hurting others when there wasn’t much they could do to hurt him. He watched as Dean slowly advanced toward Abaddon, not really much caring about his own followers’ steady decline even though Sam’s demonic Molotovs were taking out a good twenty of them at a time. He watched the action and occasionally directed a follower but for the most part stayed out of the fray directly. Meg stayed aimed at her target. She felt the blows as they came in at her – a knife to the leg, a bite to the arm that burned like fire, a thousand little cuts and scrapes and bruises and cracks that might have put a human or even a lesser demon out of commission – but she had a goal and that goal was not much taller than she was and wearing a wool coat in May. 

It probably took fifteen minutes of hard fighting but she made it to his side. “Did you miss me, Crowley?” she growled, grabbing his collar and spinning him around.

“Meg,” he spat. An angel blade appeared in his hand. Funny how everyone seemed to have those things these days; she supposed she had Clarence to thank for that. “Funnily enough, I did. Never thought I’d see you spreading it for the world’s angriest ginger though.” 

She parried his attempt to put the angel blade into her heart. “Funny thing about relationships, Crowley,” she pointed out as she directed a kick at his knee that reversed the joint. He staggered backwards but managed to right himself. “They work out better when you don’t use terms like ‘whore’ and ‘spreading it.’” 

“Why sugar coat it, sugar?” he sneered. “It’s what you’ve always done, isn’t it? Cozy up to the people with the power to keep yourself comfortable and safe.” He gestured and she felt a tug on her being, the black smoke being pulled out of her vessel. She was stronger than that. 

She exerted her will and made a gesture of her own and felt the energy he was directing at her rebound on him. The best way she could think of to describe it would be the way a rubber band snapped back when it broke. She followed it up with a stab at the side of his chest as he blinked in confusion that he just barely managed to block. “Jealous much?”

“I am your king!” he roared as he riposted, aiming at the center of her chest. His blow was sloppy – he let his emotion get in the way of good sense and good technique. She was able to turn aside to avoid the blow while stepping in, grabbing his hand and pressing in to force him to drop his blade. His round face went from red to white in an instant and she kicked him into a kneeling position. He smirked, smarmy to the last. “Is this for Lucifer?” he sneered, recalling the last time she’d been about to kill him.

“No, pig,” she spat. “This is for me. And for Hell.” And she plunged the blade, true and sure, into his heart. Just to be sure, after the lights finished flickering, she stabbed him in the neck and the skull. Crowley would not be returning. 

Most of Crowley’s minions had been dispatched, too. Not all of them, and their side had suffered losses too, but they had enough people to take care of the mop-up operation so that the big guns could take care of defending Abaddon from Dean. Tammuz, wounded, had joined his queen in fighting against the new Cain. The problem of course was that he hadn’t made a deal to try not to kill Dean, and the ancient devil had both self-defense and a strong dislike of the elder Winchester to motivate him. Meg raced forward to try to step in, only to find herself pulled back by Sam. “What the Hell are you doing?” she demanded. “I can’t let him hurt her!”

“I have a plan,” he assured her. “I’m just going to really, really need for you to be ready. All of my focus is going to be on Dean, so I’m going to need you and Abaddon to keep hold of Tammuz and take care of the blade, okay? We can use Crowley’s curse box. Nice work with him, by the way.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

He pulled something out of his pocket – a red ring. Meg could feel the power radiating off of it. “It’s War’s,” he informed her. “Well, it was. We cut it off of him back in the day. It should amplify… I’m hoping that this will work on whatever it is I’m able to do with Dean. The blood. Whatever.” 

“That’s an awfully big gamble, Sam.” She frowned.

“Either way, his attention is on me.” He slipped the ring on his finger and stepped forward. “Dean!” He called. There was no response. He cleared his throat, closed his eyes and exhaled. “Dean!” he tried again, and Meg felt it this time. His voice was deeper, clearer and it echoed off the very trees. It spoke to the black smoke inside her. It spoke to the seething hate that roiled inside every demon. It spoke to the need to destroy, to fight, to win. Tammuz was the first to pause, then Abaddon, and finally Dean. He didn’t lower the Blade, but he did pause. The sweat dripped from his body and his muscles vibrated with tension, but he wasn’t attacking anymore. “Drop the Blade, Dean,” Sam urged. He stepped forward and if he’d seemed tall before he seemed to stand about eight feet tall now. Plaid had never looked so majestic. 

“Fuck you, Sam,” Dean spat. “Siding with demons again. This is just like you.”

“I said to drop the blade, Dean.” His tone was less gentle. Meg would have dropped the blade. None of the other demons – on either side – moved. 

“And I said fuck you, Sam.” 

Sam stepped in closer. The brothers were toe to toe now. “Drop the blade!” Sam barked, and finally something involuntary in Dean’s brain kicked in because the bone dropped from the elder brother’s hands. Sam clutched the shorter man to him in a mammoth hug as Meg took the opportunity to telekinetically remove the blade from the ground, bringing it over to the curse box and locking it up. 

She turned around. The touching hug moment was over – Sam had used it to slip a pair of bespelled handcuffs onto Dean and was now checking him over for injuries. Sam himself was bleeding in a few places but didn’t seem to be terribly concerned about it. He frog-marched Dean to the car and Meg returned to her queen and lover. 

Abaddon’s bloody hands caressed her face. “You’re hurt,” she commented, turning her head to the side. 

Meg shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. The suit will mend. Or I’ll find a new one.” Now that Meg was done with all of the drama and the fighting and the immediacy of needing to act she could admit that she was actually in a lot of pain. Maybe it was indeed time for a new host body. “You deserve something better anyway.” 

“If you want a new host body get a new host body, but don’t do it for my sake,” the redhead told her. “You’re the perfect consort no matter what skin you’re wearing, although I have been enjoying the things we do with you in that skin.”

Meg’s heart picked up at the word “consort.” “Seriously?”

“I didn’t win it all by myself; I’m certainly not going to try to rule it all by myself.” She wrapped her arms around Meg and pressed their lips together, rulers returning to their kingdom together.


End file.
